Not many look at the average lifespans of that time if the eyewitness was a child 10 years old he would be 50 by the time it was written down so most likely dead tough lets say some children did survive that time and where interviewed by the authors. How much would their story differ from the actual events? Try it yourself look for a video that was made when you where young and you are in it. Then write down what do you think happened in the video in the greatest detail possible then watch the video and see how well you did.
Bronze Age and Iron Age[10] 35+
Classical Greece[11] 28
Classical Rome[11] 28
Pre-Columbian North America[12] 25-30
Medieval Islamic Caliphate[13] 35+
Medieval Britain[14][15] 30
Early Modern Britain[10] 40+
Early 20th Century[16][17] 30-45
Current world average[18] 67.2
The biggest influence on those statistics is infant and child mortality. I am not saying that helps the situation for the advocates much at all but during those times if you could make it into adulthood you had a pretty good chance of living a decently long life barring illness and such.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson
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